Review article
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v32i1.2126
The Welfare State in the USA and the Impact of Racial Discrimination on its Development in the 20th Century
Petar Šturanović
orcid.org/0000-0002-0690-8293
; Faculty of Law, University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro
Abstract
The author examines the concept, growth, and discriminatory aspects of the welfare state development in the United States of America in the 20th century concerning the African-American racial minority. According to him, the primary cause of the US welfare state’s decline in generosity from its founding to the present is the racial issue. Legal or institutional models of the exclusion of African-American users of social programs characterized different phases of its development, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal to the Great Society. These models were frequently the outcome of compromises between liberal reformers and conservative parts of society, especially in the segregationist South. From mothers’ pensions to the AFDC program, various constructions such as “adequate home” and “worthy parent” were used to reduce the number of African-American women receiving welfare payments. The conservative attack on the welfare state, which led to the elimination of the AFDC program and its replacement with a significantly less generous, work-oriented TANF that encouraged personal accountability had a racial undertone associated with the created stereotype of the Welfare Queen, a single African-American woman who lives by abusing public resources.
Keywords
welfare state; race; USA; social policy; discrimination
Hrčak ID:
333913
URI
Publication date:
1.7.2025.
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